John Pletz On Technology

Yello raises another $5 million

Yello, a fast-growing maker of recruiting software, raised $5 million, led by a New York private-equity firm.

Argentum Group led the round, along with Chicago-based First Analysis, bringing the startup's total funding to $11 million. (Yello previously was called Recsolu.)

The company has doubled in size since March and now has about 70 employees, says CEO Jason Weingarten. Staff could double again by the end of next year as he beefs up its sales and technology operations.

Weingarten is doubling the engineering team to add more features to its software, which helps companies such as Facebook, AbbVie and Ernst & Young keep track of job candidates.

Yello was founded seven years ago, providing software that allowed companies to track college students for eventual hire. The product proved so successful that clients started using it to track all their job candidates. Non-college usage now accounts for about one-third of the business.

Companies spend tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands annually to use its software, with its largest customers spending into seven figures.

Weingarten said he wasn't looking to raise money when he met an Argentum exec at an industry conference earlier this year. Yello isn't the first Chicago deal for the New York-based private equity fund. Argentum previously invested alongside Chicago-based First Analysis in Trustwave, a computer-security company that sold this year for more than $800 million.

Yello grew out of Weingarten's previous work. In the 1990s, he and co-founder Dan Bartfield started a company called eCampusRecruiter, which sold software to career centers at universities. When of those software users moved from universities to corporate jobs, they couldn't find the software tools they wanted.